


You Miss Rose

by telekinesiskid



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Heartbreak, Homesickness, POV Second Person, Resentment, um
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 01:03:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3831388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinesiskid/pseuds/telekinesiskid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Pearl and you miss her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Miss Rose

**Author's Note:**

> Because I like to entertain the idea that Pearl has a dark streak she keeps repressed and maybe sometimes she isn't always so nice to poor Steven :( cue the sads
> 
> Special thanks to my beta Kiiouex <3

Some days it’s unbearable.

Some days you don’t leave your room. You skip out on missions and hope that Garnet and Amethyst can take care of it without you. You stay in the temple and you play with your swords and you think of _her_ sword and you wonder what became of it.

Other days, you pay a visit to all the emotional landmarks. All of the places you and her had ever shared something special. A conversation. Something more. Because you were _her_ Pearl. And no one else’s.

She never had anyone quite like you. That thought alone used to cheer you up on your bad days, when the loneliness was at critical capacity. But it doesn’t anymore. Not since Steven brought home the lion. Rose’s lion. But it’s not Rose’s lion; it’s just a _pink_ lion, and it probably isn’t even the right shade of pink anyway to have belonged to Rose. You absolutely _insist._ You raise your voice. You clench your hands into fists. Why can’t anyone understand? Rose just never had a lion. If she ever _did_ have one, she would’ve shown it to you. She would’ve mentioned it. You would’ve _known_ something about it because she shared _everything_ with you, _everything…_

Not everything.

You know like her sword through your heart that Rose didn’t share everything with you. And you realise all over again that you weren’t the only special thing in her life – not by a longshot.

You stare at Steven. Her son, Steven.

You alternate between staring at him too much and then not enough.

 

Sometimes you don’t talk to him as Steven. You talk to him as Rose.

You ask him– her, you ask her, “Rose, are you in there?” and he _loves you–_ he loves you like the mother he never had, and he sees you when you’re hurting, and he wants to make you _happy_ , so he humours you.

He goes down to the Pier with his pocket money and comes back a while later. He pulls wads of pink candy floss from their packaging and amalgamates them and stands in front of her portrait because he doesn’t _know_ Rose–  _he_ _doesn’t even know what her hair looks like without needing to–_ and he sticks the candy floss to his head and tries to shape a few curls out of it. He wears a white cloth around his middle because he doesn’t have a dress, and he cuts out a pale yellow star to put around his– _her_ gem, and he rubs no-pips strawberry jam around his lips and tries to bloat them out.

He presents himself with a “ta-da!” and beams at you, like he’s expecting you to laugh, or tell him he’s so much like her, even if it’s just joking. Or tell him that you appreciate the effort he made.

He just wants you to stop being so sad.

You take too long to respond, or do anything really. He asks you if he looks good. If he looks like his mother did.

You tell him that he’s disgusting.

You grip his shoulders and stare at him and try to stare straight _through_ him, to _her_. You ask. “Where is Rose?” You ask again. “Where is Rose?” You ask again and again and again, until he’s crying, and Garnet has to take him away from you, and Amethyst starts _screaming_ at you that you’re an _awful_ gem and you should be _ashamed_ of yourself, and everyone’s _ashamed_ of you, and _Rose_ would be _ashamed of you–_

And then you’re crying too.

 

He doesn’t look like her. Sometimes you _think_ that he does, but you’re just mistaken. You’re too hopeful. He doesn’t look like her, not at all. He looks a lot more like Greg _._

 _Greg._ Who you’ve managed to remain civil to for all these years. Even after Rose had gone.

You never understood what Rose saw in him. For a man named _Mr Universe,_ he was the most underwhelming human you’d ever met. All… scratchy, and shredded, and outgrown and unkempt. And that _whiny,_ amplified instrument of his. And his _singing_ was just… _ugh._ It was just as bad. You didn’t _see_ whatever Rose saw when you laid eyes on him, when you accompanied her to his concerts because you felt like you didn’t get to spend enough time with her anymore. From the way she acted, you were convinced you both must’ve been looking at completely different people. She stared at him, just like…

Just like you stared at her.

She must’ve attempted to explain it to you over a hundred times – how she felt about him – but you never listened so you never understood. You loathed the way that her eyes just _sparkled_ whenever she talked about him, and– that was it, you tuned right out. You decided not to say anything and not to look so _petty,_ and just wait until Greg was out of the picture. Because all human lives were fleeting and trivial and dull, and you were _so confident_ back then that she’d take off his shirt any day soon and stop playing his dreadful ‘music’, and she’d force him to move on and move away and _leave her alone._

But he didn’t leave.

Rose did.

You’re a lot kinder to him now than you used to be.

But it took years.

 

He’s so much like her sometimes. He sees the good in everything, in everyone. Even in you.

And you wonder if that’s her.

But some days you find yourself resenting Steven. On any other day you would be patronisingly enchanted with the way he makes too much noise and poorly imitates you and makes you food you won’t eat and needs constant rescuing and tells you that you’re amazing for completing even the most basic of tasks. But today you don’t find it enchanting at all. Today you _hate it._ You hate how _loud_ he is, how _messy,_ how… _how…_

_Annoying._

And you know you never would– _of course,_ you never would. Not as long as _Rose_ is still inside him and watching you, maybe. But you think about it. You entertain the thought, just a little. You think about raising a hand to him – not for an ‘up top’ this time – and you have to remember to catch yourself and ask yourself what is _wrong_ with you.

You think of Rose. You think of how much she’d _hate you,_ and that’s enough to crush the impulse.

 

When you’re not busy – exhausted from missing Rose – you miss the Homeworld. Whereas reminders of Rose come abrupt and painful, you only have to peer into the night sky to think of where you could be right now. Where you’d much rather be.

You didn’t care about the war. You never did. You didn’t care that your people were perfectly content to obliterate just another mediocre planet with primitive, unevolved lifeforms. Humans were already well on track to destroying their own planet and themselves anyway. Gems would’ve only sped up the process. It was doomed from the start.

Much like Greg, you never understood what Rose saw in _humans_ in general. But she saw the beauty in everything. That was just her nature.

You only saw the beauty in her and everything she touched.

It was no secret, not in the least to Rose. If you couldn’t have had her by your side, you would’ve chosen the Homeworld. Rose knew it. The other gems knew it.

Steven doesn’t know it.

He doesn’t know that you’d rather have Rose over him.

 

One day, it all gets too much, and you have to run.

He makes it worse. He follows you, he calls out to you. All you do is tell him to _leave you alone._

He chases you all the way to a place he has _nothing_ to do with. You bound from rock to rock, thinking only of yourself, only of Rose, and you _hurt_ because you distinctly remember telling him to be careful the last time you brought him to a place like this. But you’re sick of telling him to be careful. He never listens to you, and that doesn’t change, even now.

He takes the leap you already know he can’t make. You turn just in time to see him falter and fall through the air, and a falling sensation overcomes you too – settles deep in your stomach and forces his name from your lips like someone had to punch it out of you.

He falls. He _screams._

But for once, you’re not there.

You don’t catch him.

You don’t save him.

You don’t even try.

All you do is sit there and you _wish– Oh_ , you _wish_ and you hope that Steven dies a quick and painless death, as if that makes you any less of an awful gem. As if that makes it any less palatable.

You wish that he falls and breaks something open or severs something vital and he would cleanly puff out of existence after he breaks the fall of her gemstone, bouncing it to a safe, soft bed of lush grass (or battered flesh) while she recuperates. While she gathers her strength.

And you wish that maybe soon you’ll see her again.

You wish all this and then you realise that the screaming has stopped. You peer down to see that Steven is still alive, still hanging on– literally hanging onto the roots at the base of the rock, and he _stares_ at you– stares with those wide, dark eyes and that little open mouth, like he doesn’t know how he’s made it even this far in life without you, and he _looks right at you_ like he expects you to come down and rescue him, like you always do.

But you don’t. Not this time.

You pull yourself away from him and you turn yourself away and you wish that it was a fluke and that he’ll lose his footing and slip and fall again– only so that you don’t have to face him and tell him why you… just…

Did nothing.

He pulls himself up and you’re already crying into your hand, feeling gross, _being_ gross, and you cover your mouth as if you think you might scream at any second, and you just might. Every beat of your heart feels like someone has ripped it straight from your chest and they’re pumping it with their stony hand, beating it for you, because some part of you has just given up and you don’t _want_ to be here anymore– you want to go home, you want _Rose._

_But you can’t have either._

You gaze up into the galaxy – your eyes are so full of tears it’s just a starry blur to you now – and you sniff and you stare and you _wish._ You half-expect Steven to come up behind you while you’re still vulnerable, to hurt you, because _you would deserve it but–_

He doesn’t hurt you. Not physically. Emotionally, he destroys you. Like he does almost every day, when you catch glimpses of her smile on his face. Or he tells you something charming about Earth and all the creatures in it that makes your chest swell and your heart flutter in the way that Rose used to do to you.

He _forgives you._

He forgives you before you’ve even told him sorry and really even meant it. He doesn’t even _say_ that he forgives you, but you know in your pathetic, aching heart that he just _does._

Because he’s her _son_ and he’s just… _so much like her._

He puts his arms around you and _squeezes,_ and he presses the side of his warm, squishy face to your back. He holds you. It feels like restraint, but it’s _not –_ he’s grounding you. He’s keeping you here. He’s trying to make you feel better. He tells you that you’re _great_ and you wonder for a harsh, searing second if he even knows the _meaning_ of that word because you’re _not,_ you’re _awful, you–_

You don’t deserve to live in the world she saved.

He doesn’t let you go. He stays with you and stays quiet and just holds you – even as your tears drip down and hit his skin, even as you stare up and wish for a _home_ that isn’t this one anymore _._ And he lets you stay there for as long as you need to calm down and think rationally again.

 

You tell him later that you love him, and you mean it. You really mean it. Because he’s Rose’s son, and he’s a part of Rose, and he tries so hard, even when you give him so little. You kneel down and place your hands on his shoulders and tell him that you’re _sorry,_ and you breathe the word like it’s the last one that’ll ever leave your lips. You’re so sorry.

He grins at you. There are stars in his eyes. He tells you he loves you too and also “no problemo” – whatever that means. He changes topic and blabbers something about his day so far, but it makes you falter. Because he doesn’t _understand._ Because he’s just a _child_ and he’s so kind and so naïve and so pure and so easily forgiving and _so like_ _her_ and it’s just not _fair._

You start crying again. But you take him into your arms. You pretend that you’re happy.

But you haven’t been happy since the day he was born.

And you hate yourself for it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
